Clarity
by kiliyousosilly
Summary: Soon after Steve finds Bucky, they both find files left behind behind by HYDRA. The files tell of an experiment. A breeding program between two soldiers was introduced six years ago. The Winter Soldier was the best, so why not make a family of it? Bucky/OC. Rating may change.
1. ab initio

**You're either gonna like the idea or hate the idea, I just wanted to try something different from what has been made in the Bucky/OC fics so far. I'm not even sure if I like the idea, I just didn't want to write something that has been written about fifty time before me. I dunno. I guess I do kinda like it.**

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**Prologue: **

**_ab initio_**

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Steve finds James 'Bucky' Barnes lurking near an abandoned HYDRA hideout on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. James, (who will never see himself as Bucky but at least allows Steve that small pleasure) says nothing to the friend that he remembers knowing but remembers nothing about.

The HYDRA hideout is abandoned, but Steve still peers into his best friends eyes and sees some kind of desperation there. No words are exchanged as Steve eyes the man that he has spent forty-six days searching for. Steve Rogers is hiding too, from SHIELD, so he guesses that hiding with Bucky won't be so bad.

'Do you want to go in there, Bucky?' he asks. James frowns, as if he does not understand the question. He does, of course. He just doesn't understand why Steve would want to go in there with him. Even though he sees this as his mission (a mission to find out who he was and what they did) he kind of wants to Captain America, his once target, to join him in the desolate looking building.

He isn't comfortable with the feeling.

_'Then finish it, 'cause I'm with you to the end of the line'. _James knows fully that it had been these words that shattered every order HYDRA had given him. It had been these words that had him partly _remembering _Steve. It had been these words that drew him to the Smithsonian, to view the Captain America exhibit...where he read his life biography, learning that Steve had been telling the truth.

There is two feet of space between them and the chain fence that James had started to work at before Steve said his name in that voice was already halfway torn open. James stares, unsure, but then nods. Yes, he decides. If he wants to find out about what he was before, then he supposes that having Steve with him would make sense. Steve knew the- the real him better than any one else in the world.

Better than James did.

They walk, ducking low and using the training that both of them had. Anyone watching would see the way in which the casually dressed men ducked low, but the darker of the two moved with a more graceful purpose.

'Bucky,' says Steve, his hand moving forward to rest on the James's shoulder. The man freezes, every instinct in him telling him to _attack _and to _kill_. He has to stop breathing, to remind himself that this is Steve and Steve will not hurt him. He had proved it before. He had proved it when he had refused to fight James.

_'Then finish it, 'cause I'm with you to the end of the line'._

'Sorry,' Steve apologizes, snapping his hand back. He knew straight away that such a move would have caught Bucky off guard, but he just _had _to...touch him. 'Buck...I've been looking for you for months. And I-' Bucky turns. They are covered by the hulking mass of wall surrounding them. Bucky knows that the entrance to the building is just around the corner.

He does not know how he knows this.

'I wanted to say thank you. For pulling me out of the water, I mean'. James had known this would come up. He doesn't know why he had pulled Steve out of the water. Something in him had ordered that it was the right thing to do, and that in the future he would regret not saving the mans life. The voice that ordered sounded familiar, feminine. Bucky wonders whether she is a voice from the past, too.

Bucky looks at Steve, and suddenly sees a vision of a shorter, skinnier boy with the same face who needed looking after. The image jolts him, and he stiffens. In order to appear as if nothing had happened, words fall out of his mouth to change the subject. 'How did you find me?'

Steve shrugs. The sun was beginning to set. 'I knew you'd come to HYDRA. Knew you would go looking for all of the nearest bases they had. It's what I would do'. He glanced around, breathing out. 'And I guess they'd know it's what you would do. We've got to be careful'. He looks back to James, a smile on his face, and James turns away.

He tried to kill Steve. Why is Steve smiling at him?

The entrance is bolted shut, but that is no problem for Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

There are rooms upon rooms, filled with records that have nothing to do with James Barnes. After nearly half an hour of no talking and creeping into the darkest depths of the place, James suddenly reels at the room that is set out before him.

There had been many rooms - many places where they would make him forget. This had been one of them.

It is in the basement, a place that would surely hide his screams. Over the last two months, he had awoken screaming; woken with the memory of pain in his head and the feeling of becoming a blank slate once again. Ready to be rewritten. He remembers more of those days than he does the days where Steve was tiny and James was Bucky.

'Bucky? Buck?' Steve grabs his shoulder again, tighter this time. James stares at the metal table before him, with its gathering dust and suppressed memories. He sees nothing that reminds him of the machine they used to make him forget. He assumes that they moved it.

James is suddenly very unsettled, and very scared.

_'James'._

He snaps to attention, glaring around the room.

_'They'll make you forget tomorrow, now that they've got what they want'._

Steve stops calling his name, but still lays his hand tightly on Bucky's shoulder. With something akin to remorse, he realizes that Bucky is having an episode. He is remembering.

_'You'll forget all about me'._

James tears himself away from Steve, angry and upset that he cannot remember who spoke those words to him. He is angry because the memory made him angry. Whatever had happened and whoever spoke those words to him had made him, at the time, so angry. Or had he been angry at himself? Angry at what was happening?

But what _had _happened? Who _had _been here with him?

'Bucky?'

Steve is hesitant, and Bucky spins to face him. 'Someone was here with me'. Steve frowns. 'In this building'. It could have been years and years ago. The times that James had been woken up were beginning to blur into one. Whoever it was, whoever she was, could be long gone.

Steve seems to understand that this person had not brought up bad feelings, because he nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

'The files,' says Steve, and James detects sadness in his tone. He feels guilty, because he knows it is because of him. He wishes, somehow, that he could express to this figure (this man, this once friend) that he is thankful he came to find James, because now James can find out more. He had thought of finding Steve, but could not think of one good reason why Steve would want to be found. James was undeserving. Steve was good. 'We should find the files'.

That much he knew.

They do find them. The base had been left so hastily that that records still existed. They were locked away in cabinets, huddled into the next room behind a desk that had traces of blood etched into the lines of the wood. 'Maybe we weren't the only ones HYDRA had after them,' Steve hums, sliding a finger over the desk. 'Buck...the blood's fresh'.

James had seen this already and had already deduced that the blood was merely a few days old. But no bodies. If the place had been taken down rather than abandoned, where were the bodies?

The first important file that he finds shows him, James, in the cryosleep. He holds the paper in his hands, scanning over the information printed out onto the page. He already knows everything on there - it is information that he has gathered himself over the past few months. His name. His serial code. The times he had been woken up. Important enough.

He put it away - folded it into a tiny slip and pressed into the pocket of his trousers.

His frozen, sleeping face is all he sees the rest of the time they spend searching. Not everything in the cabinets is about him. There are other HYDRA experiments, but all of them link to what had been done to him. Others, apparently, had suffered so that they could make him the best.

And then James finds the file on _her_.

There is a picture of her. A girl, face blank and eyes big, _light_. James supposes that such a look is not meant for a child at the age of - he checks the date of birth and the date the picture had been taken - three. That would make her, if she still lived, five years old now.

He hears Steve shuffle behind him, making enough noise so that James knows he is close and that he is reading the information over his shoulder.

James is grateful for that. He is grateful that Steve understands he does not like being snuck up on.

The girl had brown hair cropped to her shoulders messily and what looks to be eyes bloodshot from crying, recently. James only pays attention to such details because he had never seen HYDRA take on child soldiers. They always seemed intent with hiring and taking on soldiers old enough to learn.

'My God...' breathes Steve. 'Buck...'

James frowns, wondering what could have caught the Captain's attention so. Captain. He had not thought of Steve as his Captain in a very long time. Still, he reads. The little girl has a name, and that name is Clarity. Her serial number is 896. She was born five years ago. The notes that are pinned to the official looking document talk of her heightened stamina and growth. A lot of it seems familiar to James, because so much of it matches his own files.

But still, there is no mention of the serum.

That is when he sees it. He sees what Steve had breathed out in surprise, his breath tickling at James's messy, shoulder length hair. He sees, in writing half hidden by the pinned note, exactly where the child had come from. She had not been found, like so many of the failed experiments that passed through HYDRA had been. No, she had been born. Born from a male and a female, both carriers of the serum.

**Mother**: _Samantha Amelia Morris #895_

The name holds something to James, just as the name Steve had held something to him. He recognizes it, but without even meaning to he reads the name as Sam.

But it is not that information that jolts an odd, forgotten feeling of surprise throughout his very being. James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is not easily surprised. He is a ghost, he is silent, he is the one that surprises. But the name that is printed beside the red, bold stamp that reads '**SUCCESSFUL**' is enough to send his metal hand punching through the wall in front of him.

**Father**: _James Buchanan Barnes #894_

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**Thank you for reading, review if you feel like it!**


	2. specto

**Chapter One:**

_**specto**_

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Samantha watches.

HYDRA had _made _her to be silent, just as they had made James to be a _ghost_ with the muscle and the brawn to take down any of his targets. He was always the best, the _greatest. _Sure, James was insanely good with a gun, but you should _see_ Samantha Rae with a katana.

She remembers (this would once have been a big deal for her) the day Doctor Ellen Rae took her into the training room and showed her an array of weapons. It was after the serum had taken effect and she no longer remembered anything about herself, other than the fact her name was _Soldier. _She did, though, remembering the _pain _of forgetting.

She had picked up the gun. That was a no. All of the guns were resounding _no's, _and that had made Ellen Rae smile. '_Something quieter?' _she proposed, nodding to a stack of swords, knives and, oh, the _katana._

Sam thinks that this is when she started to win the Doctor over.

She had been twenty at the time, and not yet put into cryosleep. After a few minutes of deliberation, she had picked up the katana, and immediately it became an extension of herself.

It was _her_ weapon on the three missions she went on and every time she trained with lower rank HYDRA guards. Two years separated the first and second mission, and then one year separated the last.

It was in the time before her last mission that she was introduced to the _one_ other like her. Honestly, she never got to speak to many people because she had nothing to _say, _so being introduced to someone who had been through _it_ too had been...a breath of _fresh air. _It was just a shame that the circumstances had been so...so _dirty. _So _taboo._

Her third mission, her first and last with James Barnes, had been such a success that Project Clarity had been put into motion.

Sam shifted, eyeing the dying sun.

She watched Captain America and her Winter Soldier dart into the HYDRA base that she had infiltrated a week ago, realizing that, soon, he would finally _know. _She had, of course, been following him since his 'coming out' in D.C. Before that, she'd lost all sight of him.

Whereas she had been taken away from him and put into a room for_ nine months,_ he had been put back to sleep in cryo - until recently. She'd been drinking tea with Ellen when she'd realized, with a sudden plunging feeling, that the reports on the News and the blurry, grainy pictures taken by the public were of _him._

_They'd_ woken him up. HYDRA.

Sam had torn herself away from Ellen Rae, her once Doctor, and begged her to realize that he was _back _and HYRDA was retreating. _'They'll find you,'_ Ella Rae had insisted. '_I didn't risk my life breaking you out of that base five years ago, just for you to get caught all over again. No! I realize that HYDRA has retreated, but so has SHIELD! He won't even _remember _you, Samantha'._

_'But,' Sam had pointed out, folding the katana into her bag and remembering everything she had been taught. 'If I find him, maybe I can find her'._

That had shut Ellen Rae up.

She leaned against a storage container, unfolding the katana and strapping it to her back. It had been the one thing she had taken from HYDRA, five years ago. A foldable, sharp edged blade that was easy to store and easy to hide. It was what she had used to kill the HYDRA doctors that hid away in the base. She had made it easier for James, so that he could find the files that she had left behind for him.

Now, he would know. Finally.

Samantha had taken the files that had anything to do with her, though. The name on _her_ Clarity's file would be enough, hopefully, for him to begin remembering her. If not, she would introduce herself. But not yet. _Not yet._

She had followed him from base to base, watching as he left those abandoned HYDRA work places with a sour expression on his beautiful face. A face she had never forgotten because, unlike with James, HYDRA only made her _forget _a few times.

But they had made her forget her past. After that, she had three missions, a sleep between the first and the second and then, obviously, she had met James Barnes; had been _forced _into his company as the HYDRA doctors made them _mate _like animals. Then they had pushed her into that room as her stomach had grown and grown and then sliced that child out of her, allowing Sam only two months with the newborn.

Still, Sam remembers things about her life before the serum. Or she has seen what they had hidden from her, like the fact that her surname had once been Morris and her middle name Amelia.

The feel of loss, which makes her quite sure that someone she'd known had died. She relates this feeling to the loss of James. She remembers lots of sun and lots of _yellow_. The smell of flowers and an unthinkable fear of _darkness. _Samantha supposes that this is a childhood memory. Honestly, she has never wanted to find out about her past. Whoever she had been, or whoever she had known...they would not like who she is now.

She wonders if Clarity is afraid of the dark; wonders where her little girl lies tonight.

After the serum had been put into her and she became _Soldier, _she secretly gave herself a name. _Samantha, _her mind would breathe, each day she woke to train and to be taught. _Your name will be Samantha. _She doesn't know where HYDRA found her, but she does know she was born around 1984.

After her third mission with James, they allowed both of them to stay awake until _it _happened. For a while, Sam made _sure_ that nothing would happen, that she would not get pregnant, just so _he_ could stay in her bed that little bit longer. She remembers whispering to him, telling him in secret that she had named herself _Samantha._

Of course, she had assumed that she had named herself as such. Really, it had been the memories of her life before the serum giving her name back to her. Samantha Morris. That had been her name. She wonders why Ellen Rae never told her that her name _had _been Sam, rather than just creating the illusion that Samantha had named herself.

She remembers seeing the files and _knowing _that she'd had a life before HYDRA. She'd sometimes wondered.

_'Doctor Rae calls me Sam,' _she murmured, allowing him to sit on the edge of her bed. He had been stoic and angry, so indignant that _this _was his mission. Sam was that little bit more human than he was, and that was why _he_ was the _best_ and why HYDRA had labelled her a **FAILURE **after Ellen Rae had stolen her away. He was older, Sam knew now, and had endured more than her. In secret, in their alone time, Doctor Ellen Rae had made Sam _human _and, accidentally, started to love the woman like family._  
_

Accidentally, Sam had loved the woman too. One of the golden three that Sam had _ever_ loved.

It was only when Clarity had been ripped away from Sam at only two months old that Sam decided, with a defining _clarity, _that HYRDA was _bad. _Even after Ellen Rae finally caved and swept the distraught, _feeling _soldier away, neither of them gave up on finding Clarity, #896. _  
_

But that was five years ago.

The files that Sam had found in _this _HYDRA base told her that Clarity had been here two years ago, and she had been _crying._

Sam froze. Sam did not think of it. Sam only thought of James and him finding the files.

But still...a week ago, when she had found those files and impaled those Doctors with her katana, she had seen a picture of her daughter for the first time. To Sam's minor disappointment, she saw that Clarity, named by the Doctors that delivered her, looked very much like her biological father. All eyes and lips and dark hair. She had almost wanted to see something of herself in the girl, just to make the fact this was her _daughter _more...real.

Yet...yet the picture had been so...so...

_Beautiful, _Sam had thought. _She is so beautiful_. Sam had crouched, surrounded by the five dead bodies, and cried for the first time since Clarity had been taken from her.

**SUCCESSFUL**_**.** _

Those had been the words branded across the little girls file. So, the project had worked. Clarity was a prodigy child, with the strength of her parents and ability to become a new breed of _soldier._

It was Samantha's mission to save her from that.

But now things were coming together. Somehow, James seemed to have teamed up with Captain America, of all people. It did not take much for Sam to recognize the mans face. Did that mean, if Sam approached them, they would help her find Clarity?

Would James care for finding her at all? He would not remember Sam, nor their two months spent locked away in that room. He would not care for her face or remember whispering her name into the shell of her ear as he came undone, as Sam unwound the rope tied so tightly around his humanity by the Russians. And, in turn, he had ignited a sudden need in her to defy the orders that HYRDA had given her.

Sam had found her sudden _want _of James, her mission, to be ludicrous. But it had been the baby, her Clarity, that solidified these thoughts.

It had taken Sam two years to remember fully what had happened on those first two missions - the ones they had made her forget. She knows that they would have made her forget Clarity and James, but Ellen Rae had taken her away from HYDRA before that could happen. Samantha wishes that Ellen hadn't made her _remember _those missions; what she had _done. _Assassinations. Murders. Helping HYRDA.

_Hail _HYDRA.

With these bitter thoughts in her mind, Sam darts over to the entrance, glad for the darkness that had enveloped the deserted area. She'd parked three blocks away, near enough to the motel James had checked into so that she could keep an eye on him. Sam had tried very hard to convince herself that being sentimental was stupid, but she couldn't stop herself from making sure that James was _okay._

All of this, him coming back...it had brought out the soldier in her once again. The one she had spent years burying after realizing (a realization that had dumped a never ending depression unto her messy life) that she had no way of finding Clarity. She couldn't contact SHIELD - she was wanted by all of the Intelligence Agencies, just as James was. No one would help her find a _weapon._

Sam doesn't even know what she'll find if- no, _when_ she finds her daughter.

Samantha glances at her digital watch. _9:56. _They'd been in there for twenty minutes so far, and it wouldn't take them long to sneak out again. She doesn't honestly know _why _she'd come this close to the entrance - it wasn't something that she had done before, but...she just wanted to see him. Close. She would never see him intimately, as she had done all of those years ago, but a glimpse at his eyes would be enough for her.

A lie. Ellen Rae would always comment on Samantha's addictive personality. It was one of the reasons why HYDRA had labelled her as **FAILURE. **Once she saw James 'Bucky' Barnes eyes, she would find it hard to pull away.

_'Bucky,' _he had murmured to her, after their fifth time of trying to conceive. She had asked him if he remember anything from _before, _because all she seemed to remember was _sun._ '_Someone used to call me that. I knew him'._

The Doctors had ordered them to become intimate once a day, promising them the privacy they needed after the incident in which a Doctor had walked in minutes after their second 'try', resulting in Samantha's sneer and the tightening of James's metal fist.

Sam, as she leans against the wall of the building, wonders if the room was still there. The room had been a kind of haven, where no cameras fed into the white, metal room where they would lay. They were _the _Soldiers - they were trusted, because they would _never _disobey a command. Or HYDRA had been so arrogant to think so. She wonders if James will remember what went on this very building.

She wonders if the Doctor's who brought Clarity here two years ago told her that this was where she had been born.

Sam pulls away from the building and shudders, remembering the hands on her legs and the high, _beautiful _cry that had sounded after _so much_ pain_. _

_There you are. There she is._

Sam had cried when they'd given her the baby. She'd been trying so hard to convince herself that the child was a mission, but then...then she'd _held _Clarity.

Samantha is snapped from her thoughts by a sudden, sharp _thud_ thatsounds to her left. Sam is unsheathing her katana as she was trained to do, her stance already falling into one of defense without even a moments hesitation. _Stupid, _she scolds, realizing just _how _out of training she had fallen. But even as the stocky form she recognizes as _James _darts toward her, she feels the sudden adrenaline coarse through her veins once again.

'_Masterpiece,' _The Doctor had declared, whence she had opened her eyes for the first time as _Soldier. 'We've done it again!'_

James barrels into her, leaving Sam no time at all to tell him to _stop, _or for her to even looking at his face, so roughed up by stubble. His hand catches the wrist that wields the katana, but she is faster. She has always been _faster._ On their mission, her third, they had fought together _beautifully._Her katana falls from her hand and lands in the other, away from his offending grasp, allowing her to swoop down and smack his leg with the flat side of the metal.

_He does not recognize me._

_Make him._

_'Bucky!' _The Captain. He lands where James had landed, apparently having chased him over the roof. _Idiot. He must have seen me through a window. _

James punches, Samantha blocks. His legs kicks out, she jumps and elbows his chest. With his mouth still pressed shut and a look of utter concentration on his face, James swoops low and grabs at the leg that she had kicked out him and, _God, _these moves are just so familiar to her. With her calve in his grasp as he _tugs, _Sam catches her other legs on his shoulder and _twists, _pulling her limb from his grasp and jumps.

With his back suddenly to her, Sam goes to hit him, once again, with the flat side of her katana, but Captain America grabs at her arm before she can swing.

Shit. She'd forgotten about him.

Both men are in far better shape than Sam, who hasn't had a fight like _this _since their third mission and the days before, in which they would train together. She tugs her arm from the Captain's grasp, surprising him with her strength that only _he _and _James _seem to have. Backing away from the two men, she surrenders, trying to fight the smile of _elation _off of her features.

She drops her katana.

Arm still raised, James freezes. His face, Sam realizes, had not changed at all. Narrowed eyes flicker down to the weapon as the Captain asks, from behind James, 'Who are you? What happened here?'

She had hoped to wait a little longer until revealing herself.

She stares at James, barely even realizing that she wants so desperately for him to know her or remember her face. 'I took them out a week ago. The Doctors that stayed behind'. Samantha remembers questioning them, asking _where _her daughter was. _We don't know, please! _'They didn't know anything interesting'.

'You killed them'. James grunts it out and beside him the Captain looks revealed to hear his partner talk. She nearly sighs. 'Are you with HYDRA?' Of _course _he would assume that.

She very nearly balks, very nearly _retches _at the idea of eve being a _HYDRA Soldier _ever again. 'No. _Never_. Once. Not again. I'm an _enemy _of HYDRA'. She can't help but wear that bitter smirk, glancing between the two men. 'Like you two, I suppose. I know who you are, both of you, so...so how about we be honest with each other?' She directs this at the Captain, deciding that he would be the most reasonable.

She stares at James again. _I never thought I would see you again._ 'What did you find in there?' He remains still, showing nothing. So like the Soldier she knew. Samantha can't help but furrow her brow and blink, hesitant. 'You have to tell me _now_ if you found it. Otherwise...otherwise you won't know _me_ when I tell you my name. I wanted to make sure this happened in the right order'.

Steve Rogers takes a step forward. 'We didn't find anything, ma'am-'

Sam shoots him a look, half bemused and half surprised at just how _bad _this man is at lying.

James still stares. _Be smart, _she wants to tell him. _You know who I am. _Of course, her hair is shorter and a shade darker now, and perhaps her face looks slightly thinner, but she is still the woman that James had been paired with to create _life. _But, she reasons, they made him forget. Nothing can't fight that, but time.

'You know me, James,' she murmurs, and all of a sudden he is stiffening.

Samantha decides to take the plunge. 'I've been following James for the past few months, once I knew that it was _him _HYDRA had sent out to assassinate Nick Fury. And then you broke _away_ from HYDRA,' she says, softly, to the man she never quite stopped...stopped _wanting_. 'And I knew I had to come and get you. I...need your help'.

He looks angry.

'I don't work for HYDRA,' she insists. 'I...you want to remember? I can help you with that. If you _have _seen the _file, _then you know there is someone who can help you. I am her. I can help'. She breathes, she knows that now it is stop or go, life or death. Every second from this moment on will be dedicated to making James remember and gathering the right resources to find Clarity.

She stands straight, becomes the Soldier she used to be. It is the only way he would _see._

'My serial code number is 895. Formerly, I _have been _in the employment of HYDRA. I have no name, not that I remember, other than the name I gave myself five years ago. That name is Samantha, or Sam, and I would like it very much if you would help me find my daughter'.

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**I don't even know how I managed to write this one out so quickly, which may suggest that it's not _great _but, hey, I like it!**

**I would also like to note that I may make mistakes regarding certain facts, and I would be very much grateful if you would correct them. I've only seen The Winter Soldier once (because I'm dirt poor and the cinema is stupidly pricey) and there's only so much information I can get on the internet. **

**Thanks for the reviews and follows so far! Follow my tumblr, _qarlgrimes, _and you should see when I'll next update. **


	3. primitus

**Sexual content in this chapter but it's not like majorly explicit but yeah. **

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**Chapter Two:**

**_primitus_**

* * *

_He enters the room with the same bland expression he had worn all throughout her third mission. Samantha wonders whether he had ever smiled. She supposes, rationally, that they are soldiers and they have no real reason to smile and she cannot judge the man before her based on his blank face._

_He doesn't know how to act human. Neither of them really do. __He had been a soldier longer than she had. She was made in his image, to be like him - strong, emotionless, free of any distractions._

_And now, they will make another. One like both of them. A girl, the Doctors had said. They would make sure it was a girl._

_They had both been briefed thoroughly, though not together. The Doctors needed assurance that both participants knew what to expect, for their memories were so far gone that the Doctors, with no trace of humor on their eager faces, questioned the male and the female on whether they knew 'what would happen'._

_'Doctor Rae has already told me,' Samantha had explained, the utter essence of a good little soldier with her back straight against the chair and her eyes trained on the Doctor before her. 'I know what to expect, Sir'._

_That had been two days ago, three weeks after her third mission. For those three weeks, the Soldier she was to procreate with had been put to sleep. His memory of their mission, though, had not been wiped, Doctor Ellen Rae had told Samantha. 'It is so he will remember you,' the woman had explained. 'So he will be more willing'. _

_Samantha had been momentarily confused. How could he not be willing? This was their mission, it was not a matter of wanting or not wanting. They did and they did not question._

_She had been told by Ellen Rae, who knew every single thing about Samantha's body, that Samantha was still a virgin. Doctor Rae looked slightly shaken by this fact, but Samantha doesn't understand why. Should she not be a virgin? She can't remember anything from before, nothing about who she was, so she does not know how to react to such news. What is it to her if she has never been with a man like this before?_

_The mission is all that matters._

_She is familiar enough with him, at least, so when he enters the white room that had been designated as 'their' room, she stands and starts toward him. He trusts her and she trusts him. They were two soldiers who had worked alongside each other, back to back - they fought in sync and had survived because of the other. Of course they trusted each other._

_Samantha was never familiar with the feeling of awkwardness, but then more than ever she felt like she did not know what to do with herself. As the Soldier she knew as James Barnes, via Doctor Rae, shrugged off his heavy, bullet proof jacket with dark eyes trained on her, Samantha is oddly aware of the fact that she is...well, that she is a woman._

_She does not recall feeling this before. She has always been Soldier. Everyone around her had only ever been meat to order around or to follow orders from._

_She wonders if she should kiss him._

_Beneath his jacket he wore a thick, hard fabric that went all the way to his wrists. Samantha knows how uncomfortable the fabric could be, but she also knows what lies beneath the fabric. _

_She wonders what his metal arm would feel like against her skin._

_She takes another step forward, murmuring, 'Soldier', in a manner of greeting. His hair moves against his cheekbones as he nods, once, his expression never changing and his hands not moving to remove anymore clothing. Samantha wishes, for some reason, that she had her katana. It made her feel safe. Being in this white room with Barnes made her feel _exposed_._

_She decides to sit, allowing him a moment to settle on the edge of the bed too. 'Doctor Rae calls me Sam,' she says softly, having been assured by said Doctor that they were not being watched. The Soldier gives her something of an incredulous look and Samantha nearly _laughs. _'I call myself Samantha. It's easier to have a name sometimes. You can call me that too'._

_He says nothing. She wonders if he knows his name is James Barnes._

_She undresses then, methodically. He would need to be aroused and, Doctor Rae had said, it would be better for Samantha if she was too. Barnes (she really should not refer to him as such. Doctor Rae had regretted telling Samantha his name immediately, just as she regretted referring to Samantha _as _Samantha - they were soldiers, they did not have names) is still until Samantha is only in a plain bra and black trousers, which is when her skin suddenly feels hot._

_Still, he sits. He sits so still that Samantha wonders how he is planning to get around this. They have to do it, it is there _orders_._

_'Soldier...' she says, legs curling beneath her as she sits behind him. She hesitates, but only for a moment, and then lays her hand on his metal shoulder. Would he even feel it? Samantha has no time to think before something in the man decides that, yes, he may as well go forward with this. He had no choice, anyway. _

_With a roll of his shoulder he successfully knocked her hand away and turns his torso toward her, eyeing her skin with blank, focused eyes. Samantha's skin seems to flare with a tumbling heat that settles in the pit of her stomach comfortably._

_She blinks at him, resolutely reaching around his side to grab at the limp, metal wrist that rested against his thigh. Slower this time, she brings the hand forward to curl against her waist. Because of this, Barnes is forced to turn slightly towards her. Still, his expression does not change. _

_On their mission together it had been her following his every move and his every turn, but in this white washed room it would be Samantha leading him. _

_She takes a plunge, when she kisses the the point of his jaw, below his ear, and it's the first real time she has felt a rush of adrenaline that has nothing to do with killing or scaling buildings. He stiffens, eyes lowered, but does not move away. Samantha tries to take note of anything other than the stiffness of his limbs to suggest that he may attack, but she finds nothing. _

_This touching of skin against skin in such a manner is so new to her, but Samantha is already addicted. She wants more. She wants to touch and to feel and to explore another human being without the intention of killing or maiming. She wants Soldier Barnes to do the same; to feel what she is feeling. So, because of this, she lays her hand against his metal one, the one that rests against her waist, and leans forward yet again. _

_Her lips touch the corner of his mouth, and by this point he is turned so fully toward her that they are nearly chest to chest, his feet still planted on the ground. _

_And Barnes he...he snaps._

_His free hand comes up suddenly, cupping her jaw and ensuring that she does not move her mouth from his. His lips cover hers and Samantha understands the concept of _kissing, _all of a sudden. She understands why people do it to share emotion and to share love and to feel good because, honestly, she feels like she may be on fire and for some reason that is a good thing. _

_They stay like that for a mere second before Soldier Barnes twists and his knees are sliding onto the bed and he is pushing Samantha onto her back and never, not once, do his lips leave hers. Her head bumps against the wall that the bed is pushed against, but she hardly notices such a thing. He kisses deeper so suddenly that Samantha's head is left spinning and her leg is cocking up and pulling him closer to her before she really understand how her mouth is supposed to move against his. _

_That, apparently, starts a kind of frenzy within both of them._

_The Samantha that lives five years later realizes that such a frenzy spawned from the sudden need for skin and _human touch. _Still, she will smile a little when she remembers James and his deep breath as he tugged down her trousers and pressed her hips to his._

_The metal hand does not hurt her, but within a few hours she will find bruises._

_She works on undressing him, and it is when his torso is uncovered, scars and all, that Samantha pressed her mouth solidly against is - again and again and again. How had she never felt such a thing before; such a beautiful thrill? Her life had been empty until this moment, until skin on skin like this existed. _

_Samantha continues to kiss him and run her hands along the expanse of his back, all the while very aware that Barnes had not spoken, not once._

_She wants to _hear _him._

_The bed is where it happens for the first time, after he had tugged his trousers down and exposed more skin than Samantha had ever seen. He looks human. Honest and human and hers for the taking. The thought stalls her, as she lays beneath him, but then he pushes inside of her and she does not know what Doctor Rae had been concerned about, because she honestly has never felt so...so good._

_There is slight pain, but Samantha is _used _to pain. She is able to differentiate between the good pain and the bad pain._

_She is a little overwhelmed, which is odd for her, to see Barnes move above her with his eyes half closed and his mouth just a little bit open. She clings to his shoulder, moving her hip up and allowing more space for him which, apparently, only causes him to make a sound that jolts Samantha right to her core. _

_How odd, how terrifying it had been...to see the Winter Soldier so undone._

_He finishes with his forehead pressed into the space between her neck and her shoulder with a sound in his throat that sounds almost pained. Samantha holds him, realizing that this does not have to end quickly. _

_They stay like that for fifteen minutes, just her holding him with him still inside of her._

* * *

Sam stares at him.

'Samantha Amelia Morris,' murmurs Captain America in recognition, raising his brow and shifting from foot to foot. 'You...you-' he coughs and starts again. 'Do you mind filling us in on, er, what we found?'

Samantha nods, curtly. James still stares, even after she tears her own brown eyes from his blue ones. 'Of course, yeah. It's why I've been tailing James for the past two or so months, Captain'. She feels wrong calling him James. Would he prefer something more formal? 'But not here. HYDRA could be anywhere -'

'Who's Clarity?'

He bites it out, face pressed so tightly into a look of confused anger that Samantha and Steve glance at him nervously. Samantha knows, more than anyone, how easy it is to _snap. _She remembers Ellen and her utter despair every time Sam broke the handcuffs she had been forced to tie the woman's hands together with. '_I want my daughter. I want my Clarity!'_

'Not here, Buck,' Rogers tries to soothe.

'Our daughter. Clarity is out daughter,' Samantha drawls, very slowly. She peers at him, testing out this new ground she has planted her feet on. He acted the same, that much was true, but there was something less stable about this James Barnes. _I left him to them, _she thinks. 'Congratulations. It's a girl'.

Rogers looks both mildly ill and mildly disproving.

James moves to shake his head, stops, and then backs up. Sam watches as Rogers goes out to grab him, but the once Sergeant moved swiftly away from him. 'I don't- don't _remember'. _He glares at her. He'd never, not even on their mission, looked at her with such malice. 'You're lying - for HYDRA-'

Sam tries to ignore the twisting in the pit of her stomach. 'You know I'm not, James. We were _trained_ to know if someone was lying'.

Rogers looks away from James and back to her so quickly that Sam wonders how he did not hurt his neck. 'Training?' he inquires. 'HYDRA used you - you're like Bucky?'

'Only less well know,' she says around a bitter smile. 'I-'

He charges for her and Sam, in that split second before she falls into her defensive stance and sweeps her katana off of the floor, thinks that this is the exact _opposite _of what she wanted to happen. Her years out of the field had made her soft, she realizes, and her hopes had been girlish and unreachable.

He punches over and over, going for stomach, her chest, her face - Sam can only block. She nicks him, once, with her katana, and this sets him into such a fury that he yanks out a knife that had been hidden somewhere in his form and makes to stab at her, the angle of the blade skimming over her wrist as she blocks it.

He freezes suddenly, eyes rolling to the back of his as he tumbles to his knees. Sam hunches down, catching him before his head can hit the concrete ground. With a cocked brow, she stares up at Steve Rogers who stares back, his fists still clenched. _Must have hit him hard, _she muses.

'Natasha showed me that one,' he muttered, a little breathless, and ducked to check James out himself. 'He's out cold, hopefully. I was almost _hoping_ something like this would happen. Going to be easier getting him to New York this way'.

Samantha, still holding James, frowned. 'Just how long do you expect him to be knocked out for, Cap? It's gonna be at least a four hour drive to New York'. She paused, glancing down to James' sleeping, suddenly _peaceful_ face. She thinks she fell in love with him after the fifth time they tried to make Clarity, as she had watched him sleep. 'And wherever he goes, I'm going'.

Rogers stares at her, then smiles. 'At least we've got that in common. C'mon, help me pick him up. Where did you say your car was?' She tells him. 'Good, because that's near where my friend is waiting for me'.

They hoist up James and his metal arms slings over Rogers shoulder. 'What's in New York?'

Steve huffs. 'A friend who can help us and give us somewhere to stay, 'cause it looks to me like we're desperate'. They started forward, both strong and able to carry the heavy, passed out soldier. 'You've got a lot of explaining to do, you know that, right?'

'Oh, I sure do, Captain'.

* * *

**Thank you for the support and the follows!**


	4. amicitia

**Chapter Four:**

_**amicitia**_

* * *

Steve Rogers was used to surprises by this point in his life.

The surprises in his life started at a young age, when a popular and good looking young boy took tiny, skinny Steve under his wing and looked after him. Such an act had shocked Steve, because none of the other kids ever wanted to befriend _him. _What could he offer them?

But Bucky...Bucky didn't care that Steve was skinny, awkward and almost always ill. He thrived in looking after Steve, all through their years at the orphanage and then beyond. He grew handsome and took out girls, but he would always make sure that _Steve _was okay, or if _Steve _wanted to come out with Buck and some dame.

_That_ was why Steve loved Bucky like a brother. It was why he would not, ever again, hurt Bucky. It was why, '_to the end of the line', _meant so much to Steve; to Captain America. It was his and Bucky's _thing _- or, he supposes, it used to be. He says it like a mantra, to remind himself that this is _Bucky. _Even though this Bucky is having trouble remembering that, Steve will help him.

Just like Bucky used to help Steve.

He would take Bucky to New York, to Stark, and they would help him remember. Steve would lock him away, if only to _help _Bucky. His friend was in there, no matter what Sam or Stark said. Bucky was _in there _and the plan was to _help _him.

The woman, though, was not part of the plan. The plan was to find Bucky, with the help of Sam Wilson, and then take him back to New York where Stark was slowly trying to draw The Avengers together once again, in some kind of attempt to fix S.H.I.E.L.D.

Not only was Bucky more broken and scattered than ever, but he apparently had a _daughter. _

'How d'you know he's gonna be out for the whole trip, Cap?' Steve was thankful, and perhaps a little guilty, that Sam had joined him on the quest to find Bucky. He could relate on many levels to the 'Falcon', and because of that he had become a friend to Steve. Someone Steve could _trust. _After the fiasco with S.H.I.E.L.D and the discovery of H.Y.D.R.A's emergence from the depths of the Intelligence Agency, a _trustworthy _friend was something Steve Rogers needed more than anything.

Steve glanced back to Bucky, momentarily catching the look, he saw, of _longing _plastered across the brunette woman's face as she stared at the unconscious man beside her.

Steve decided then that she could be trusted with Bucky.

Before he could so much as answer Sam, the woman tore her look away from Buck and spoke.

'He hasn't slept in days,' she piped up. They had been in the car for an _hour _and it was the first time she had said anything. Steve could tell that Sam was uneasy about her presence, because he would glance in the rear view mirror at her and Bucky from time to time. 'Now that his eyes are closed, I reckon that he will be out for quite a while. I mean, even though we can go a while without sleep, we aren't _that _good'.

Steve stared at her, hard. He turned to face her fully, wondering just _who _she was. 'You knew him'.

It was not a question.

'Yes'.

'You're the _same _as him'.

She quirked the corner of her mouth and Steve thought of how different she was from the dames Buck would normally go for. His girls would be all curled hair and knee length, pretty dresses. They would be pretty and outspoken, never afraid to back down from one of Bucky's teasing comments. This woman was not _pretty_, but all hard lines bent into curves, like Natasha. She was all dark hair, shapely eyebrows and small scars that Steve's keen eyes could pick up on.

But, Steve, supposed, it was not as if Buck _chose _her.

'So - what? - you were forced to _breed _by H.Y.D.R.A?' cut in Sam, overtaking the car in front. Steve cringed at his words. They still wore sunglasses and hats whenever they were _this _far out in public, but Steve had pushed his own shades to the side. 'That's kinda fu-'

Samantha straightened and Steve stared, eyeing the way in which her body coiled into the look of a straight backed soldier. 'The mission,' she relayed, in a voice that was bland and with eyes at that stared out of the front window. 'Was to create a soldier that shared both out D.N.A's. A soldier that would share both our super human qualities, but young enough to train to be _perfect. _She would, of course, be injected with the serum - but she must be _healthy _enough to survive. And, above all else, the child would be _female _and _fertile'._

Samantha met Steve's stare. '_She_ made me human again. When I saw her, I...James never had the-' she swallowed, she breathed. 'He never had the chance, the _delight, _of meeting her. Two months after her birth she was taken from me. Soon after that, a Doctor who I had grown close to took me away from H.Y.D.R.A and I took on the name Samantha Rae'._  
_

'How come your story wasn't released on the internet, then? When S.H.I.E.L.D was, er, _compromised, _I mean,' Sam asked, quite logically.

Samantha must have thought so too. 'The files that H.Y.D.R.A kept on me were not on computers. They are _written_ copies. In this day and age, those are the hardest ones to find'. She looked at Steve, and Steve was stumped by her solid stare. 'I made it easier for James to find them, though'.

She glanced to her right, to the sleeping man, and blinked slowly.

_She's in love with him, _Steve realized. He didn't say this though. Instead, he voiced the decision that he had already made. 'If you help me help Bucky remember, then I'll help you find your daughter'. He knew, without a doubt, that the others would help too. If H.Y.D.R.A was slowly working their way toward an army of child soldiers, then what remained of S.H.I.E.L.D would want to know.

Steve would have to contact Fury.

Samantha smiled that bitter, sad smile. 'Captain, you're too _good _to turn me away. Even if I _failed _in helping you aid James, then you would help me find my _Солнышко,_ my daughter, anyway'.

Sam snorted. 'Yeah. He _would'. _He caught Steve's look. 'What? No matter what shit got planted on your ass, the whole world still thinks the sun shines out of it'.

Steve elected to ignore him. 'What does _soln-'_

She was looking at Buck again when she answered, and Steve felt for a moment that he was invading something very private. He did not know what had transpired between the two, but the way in which Samantha gazed at Bucky led Steve to believe that something other than just _sex to procreate _had occurred.

'It means _little sun'._

Steve was having trouble wrapping his head around everything that was happening, and it did not help that this Samantha seemed so _calm. _Sam, apparently, was having trouble adjusting the situation too, because he would glance at Steve with an unreadable look on his face.

Steve knew that finding Bucky would be difficult. He also knew that upon finding Bucky, that things would not be _right. _And yet, he had not expected things to be _this _wrong.

He addressed her yet again, filling the dense silence. In the rear view mirror, he found her eyeing Bucky. 'They wanted to breed a new type of Soldier,' Steve relayed. 'They already had Bucky'. For years and years, whilst Steve had been frozen and the world had changed without him. 'Where did they get you?'

Samantha's eyes crinkled as she smiled, a bitter and tired thing. 'I don't know. I don't care for knowing. I know that I am somewhere between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-one, and I know that my name was once Samantha Amelia Morris'. She shrugged. 'I looked, so did Ellen Rae - the woman who broke me out of the H.Y.D.R.A base,' she added. 'No one is looking for me, nor is there any records of my existence'.

'So, what - you never existed?'

She blinked. 'I don't know. I only care about finding my daughter and helping James'. She swallowed, eyes meeting Steve's in the mirror. 'And maybe making up for all of the...the bad'.

They shifted into silence once again.

'Did he ever mention me?' Beside Steve, Sam shifted. Steve didn't dare to look up and catch Samantha's eye, feeling too tense at the idea of her admitting that no, Bucky had never mentioned him. _The Winter Soldier _had never mentioned him.

Samantha laughed softly. 'Oh, yeah. The first few...times he, uh, he didn't talk much. Neither of us did. You've gotta remember, though, he'd been with them for _years. _He'd been rewritten time and time again. He was _obedient._ I'd only had that happen to me _twice. _I started to see that maybe things weren't right, you know? Every time I was with Bucky, he remembered things. It's why I was named a _failure_. He remembered names. Brooklyn. _You. _A skinny you and then a big you'. She paused, and Steve thought that he might have one of those asthma attacks he always used to get. '_That_ confused him a little'.

It was the way in which she spoke of Bucky that made Steve wallow in a small feel of relief. _I'm not the only one who loves Buck, _he realized. _I'm not the only one who wants to help him._

And with that thought, the Winter Soldier stirred.

* * *

Samantha was _happy _to share her thoughts with Steven Rogers. It was _nice _to interact with this being that had known James too, albeit a different James from what she had come to know. _Bucky. _She had wondered, sometimes, whether she should seek out Captain America, the best friend of James Barnes. They were a famous duo, of course, and she had known James' real identity through Ellen.

Sam never did though. She never had the guts to admit to someone that she had left a frozen James behind.

And beside her, James shifted. She watched with hawk like eyes as his metal fingers stretched and curled into a fist, and then released. He sighed through his nose and, with a fluid motion, sat upright so suddenly that Sam, the man driving, actually swerved slightly.

'Get off the road,' ordered Steve, turning in his seat. 'Sam, _now'._

James glared, hair whipping as he turned to glare away from the windscreen and instead to Samantha's face. 'You,' he said, with neither anger nor happiness. Just nothing. Sam would have preferred anger. There was recognition there, though. Recognition that held none of the protectiveness and the _love _from years ago-

* * *

_'I sometimes wonder if I want to be here at all,' she admitted, nose brushing the muscle on his back. It was there third time and, like the other two times, he had shifted to lay with his back to her. Usually this would happen for thirty minutes, then they would go their separate ways around the base._

_Those words, apparently, were enough to shock the stoic Winter Soldier into turning to her, eyes ablaze with more emotion than she had ever seen._

_He looked like he wanted to understand._

* * *

'Me,' she clarified, unbuckling her seat belt. The car swerved as Sam pulled into a quieter road, where trees blocked out the rising sun. 'Are you gonna flip out at me again?'

'Buck-' said Steve, already swerving around in the passengers seat to calm down his cornered friend. Samantha eyed the man who she had once shared so much with, her stare reproachful and her body stiff. In front of her, she saw the hand of Sam Wilson twitch toward the gun strapped at his thigh.

James' metal arm lurched forward and slammed onto Sam's chair, but it was Steve's shout of, '_Bucky, no!' _and the definable ringtone of a phone that ceased the sudden panic that broke out within the car.

'Jesus, man!' yelped Sam at James, whose fingers were digging into the stuffing of the seat. Samantha froze at the sound of the ringtone, her foot kicked up onto her own seat and her palm planted flat against James' chest. He glared, whereas she became more concerned with the phone that was ringing in Steve's pocket.

'Thought you changed your phone, man,' drawled Sam, leaning away from James' hand. He sniffed, James glared. Samantha, on the other hand, was more concerned with who the hell was ringing Rogers.

Finally, the ringing stopped.

'_You know, when a phone rings it's only polite to answer it'._

James stiffened and Samantha understood that he was falling into the _defense. _For months after leaving the H.Y.D.R.A base, everything had made her on edge and worry of an advancing attack. Even the sound of Ellen stubbing her toe and yelping in pain had ended with Samantha ripping her bedroom door off of its hinges to see what was wrong.

Her instinct told her to lay her palm flatter against his chest and meet his glare with what she hoped was a comforting look. _He needs compassion, _she reminded herself. _Make him remember how much you loved him. Make him remember. Help Steve help him remember._

'_Stark_?' barked Steve, addressing the voice that seemed to come from the dashboard of the vehicle.

'_Yeah. Yes. So, you found him'._

Steve paused. '_What?'_

Something in Samantha seemed to click then. 'Wait. _Stark. _As in _Tony Stark? _Is _that _where you're taking us, Rogers?' James appeared to seethe even more as she spoke, apparently not liking the sound of her voice.

Sam coughed. 'I think _I'm _the one driving us there, actually'.

_'So, Capsicle. Heard some stuff that's having Barton flip his shit here. I, uh, might have the car bugged. Just wanted to check that everything is a-okay because your wintry friend is lookin' a little murderous, if I might say so-'_

'_Bugged? _But Natasha gave me this car-'

_'And _Romanoff_ is super trustworthy, yes,' _the voice drawled. '_Now, do you need any assistance?'_

The implication of the word _assistance _was more than clear to the four occupants of the car, even more so when Steve looked back to see Samantha pushing James into the back seat. Samantha looked back at him, expression blank and allowing _him _to decide.

'Step outside, Buck,' Rogers said, but there was a trace of order in his voice, and Samantha wondered whether he knew he was using it. The two had been together during the War, she knew. Was Rogers just used to ordering around this man with the face of his friend but the mind of someone new?

Samantha could understand his difficulty, but she also understood that James _did not _remember. She had been there. She had felt the blanks and ran her fingers along the empty cases in her mind. Filling those empty cases with color had been the difficult thing. Being able to _feel _after losing Clarity had been even harder.

'Buck. Outside,' Steve said yet again, but this time there was a softer tone to his voice. She decided then that she liked Steve Rogers, because she knew exactly what he was trying to do. He was trying to take James away from the listening voices and talk it through with his once friend that, so far, had not tried to attack Steve. Samantha and Sam were apparently the ones in his bad books.

Samantha leans slowly away from James as he shifts, clicking away the seat belt and following Steve out of the car. They both moved so slowly that Samantha and Sam spent nearly a whole minute watching the two of them exit the car until, finally, they reached the tree line and Steve bowed his head low and crossed his arm and spoke to the sullen ex-assassin.

'So,' started Sam Wilson, brushing at the ruined fabric of his seat. 'You have a _kid_ with that guy?'

Samantha huffed and fell into her seat once again, settling with the fact that Steve could handle it if James had a 'bad turn'. Instead, she glanced at Sam and cocked a brow.

'_Now, yeah, _this _is what I was talking about when I said I'd heard some stuff. Care to elaborate, uh, what was it?'_

The voice was friendly, Samantha decided. Friendly and curious and obviously belonged to someone that Steve trusted. Tony Stark. Iron Man. Avenger. A good guy, Sam knew. 'Samantha'.

'_Samantha. Right. So, a kid, huh?'_

* * *

**Slowly but surely getting to the main plot of the story! Thank you for the follows and the reviews and, to all who actually care, my tumblr is qarlgrimes. **


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